ever-present dread of a telegram from the War Office, said:

“More likely it’s old Mrs. Fry with those eggs she promised to collect for me.”

She turned as she spoke to learn from the servant who the visitor was. The newcomer, however, did not wait for announcement, but came straight on, and in another moment Mr. Henry Leslie walked into the room.

“Cousin Henry!” cried Lucy and Janet in one amazed breath.

He carried his hat and gloves still in his hand, and his kind, bright face was heavily marked with weariness and anxiety.

“Your boys were both well, Janet—Arthur too,” were his first words as he met Mrs. Leslie’s eyes.

“You’re not on leave again so soon?” Lucy faltered, and as she spoke a dreadful fear clutched at her heart and she caught tight hold of Janet’s shoulder as she stood beside her.

“Only for two days,” was Mr. Leslie’s still unsmiling answer, and as Lucy’s frightened eyes searched his he reached out for her hand and took it in a warm clasp.

“Let me speak to this child a minute, Janet,” he said to Mrs. Leslie, and the next moment she and Janet had left the room and Lucy was staring pale and trembling into his face.

“Mother—Father—Bob,” were the thoughts that whirled through her brain.

“Yes, Lucy dear, I have bad news for you,” said Mr. Leslie in answer to that unspoken question. “Bob is safe, thank God, but your father is seriously wounded. Now be brave, little girl,” he added as Lucy’s hand grew cold beneath his clasp. Leading her to a chair he made her sit down and knelt beside her. “Listen to every word I say, for I can’t waste a moment.”

The awful dizziness in Lucy’s brain seemed to subside a little. In a dazed sort of calmness she forced herself to listen.

“Your mother is only twenty miles away from him, but that stretch of twenty miles is impassable just now. There are not trains enough to carry shells and reinforcements to our hard pressed trenches, and Bob, farther up the line, where the press is hardest on the American front, cannot desert his post. Your father wants most awfully to see one of you, and you are the only one I can reach now. I’ve got permission where it seemed impossible. I’m going to take you to him to-night.”

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